Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Mike Jukich was not even planning to take a trip to Horseshoe Baltimore over the weekend. However, he not only took that trip, but also ended up as the winner of the WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Baltimore Main Event.

The player thus earned $165,438, his first WSOP Circuit gold ring, and a seat into the upcoming Global Casino Championship.

Winning the Main Event title was not an easy task for Jukich. In fact, the player had quite a ride over the tournament’s three days of play. At some point on Day 1, the player dropped to just ten big blinds. He then managed to double up twice to secure his spot among the day’s survivors.

On Day 2 of the tournament, Jukich managed to grow his stack to over 300,000 and then drop to 150,000. The player later on won a massive pot with pocket Kings against Chris Asaro’s pocket Queens. It can be said that hand changed everything for the tournament’s winner. Eventually, he finished Day 2 of the tournament second in chips, only trailing behind Jeremy Stein.

Jukich’s Day 3 run was relatively smooth before the start of three-handed play. The champion mostly kept quiet, leaving it to the others to clash against each other and whittle down what had left of the initial field.

Three-Handed Action

James St. Hilaire and Jeremy Stein were the other two players to make it into the final stages of play. Jukich quickly dropped to the short stack among the final three after he lost a couple of small pots.

However, he won a major pot against St. Hilaire shortly after to boost his stack. From that point on, Jukich had little trouble. The player won every or almost every hand dealt until the very end of the tournament. He first eliminated St. Hilaire in third place and several hands later busted Stein in second place to claim the title.

The final hand of the tournament saw Jukich move all-in with [6d][6c] and Stein call with [Ah][Ks]. A blank board sent Stein to the rail. The player’s runner-up finish in the penultimate WSOP Circuit Main Event in the series’ 2017/2018 season earned him $102,290.

Giving his post-victory interview, Jukich thanked all the people who have helped him improve his game, with some of those being poker pros Asher Coniff, Joe Liberta, and Alex Rocha. The new member of the WSOP Circuit Main Event winners club also pointed out that winning the gold ring meant a lot to him and that he liked poker trophies, even though these only had sentimental value.

As mentioned above, Horseshoe Baltimore hosted the penultimate stop of the current WSOP Circuit season. The $1,675 Main Event, part of the Baltimore poker festival, drew a field of 513 entries who generated a prize pool of $769,500.